Lady's Choice
by crackers4jenn
Summary: A Spike and Buffy fillintheblank, Life Serial style.


"Steady, Slayer."

Buffy yanks her arm out of Spike's admittedly gentlemanly grasp with a hard jerk, tucking it daintily, if not pointedly, at her side. "I don't need your help," she tells him, never mind the way her words are ended with, not a point well made, but a slight stumble. Not her fault, that grave marker came out of nowhere. Still. She straightens her jacket, smoothing out some imaginary wrinkle, and carries forward. "I can walk just fine, thank you. I've been doing it most of my entire life."

Spike backs away, already placating. "Suit yourself."

"So," Buffy says, casually, mostly to fill the fallen silence. Each forward step is a carefully thought out and seen through action. Truth be told, the world was looking a little off-balanced tonight, the passing shrubbery just a tad unfocused. She'd never really deemed herself a lightweight, but since the no-fun beer incident that progressed her back a few centuries B.C., she'd never been much for further research in that department. Until tonight. "You park your car behind your crypt?" she asks half-seriously, dodging an overhead tree branch at the same time. "You'd think I'd notice something like that."

The blurry Spike to her right zigs into view. "Downsized, Slayer," is all he says, vague and cryptic, like some kinda... vague, cryptic-y guy.

Buffy gets partially distracted as she steps over a bushel of some leafy sort, one that's about shin high. Or around there. "Huh?"

Instead of answering her, Spike starts to smirk. Creepy enough. But then, as they come to a stop, Buffy looks beyond his flaring eyes and over his shoulder and notices the shiny object that he's alluding to. Very shiny. Very two-wheely. Very... small and compact and minus a steering wheel and--

She meets his eyes with firm resolution. "Uh uh. No way."

If anything, his grin only grows, and he tosses her an amused look before stepping towards the Evil Knievel deathbike. In one way too smooth, _obviously_ practiced motion, Spike throws a leg up and over the seat of the bike, then slides silkily, almost liquidly, into place. Show off. Leather groans beneath him, and he crooks an eyebrow in her direction, his head tilted to neck-breaking degrees at the side. "What's the matter?" Cue the part where his tongue starts poking playfully behind his teeth. "Scared?"

It's a dare. A tease. Probably a little flirting too, but seeing as Buffy isn't even Spike's casual, twice-removed acquaintance, let alone anything that'd have her placed in the 'flirtee' category, she doesn't bother to acknowledge it.

Her chin rises high, haughtily so, which is a perfect companion to the primly-placed hands on her hips. "_Please._"

His response is to start the bike. The engine roars to life, and Buffy can feel the quick jolt and instant thrum of it humming through her body from where she stands. It starts at the tips of her toes and rises, swims, dances upwards in a swell of excitement and nerves, warming up her body the same way the earlier consumed alcohol had.

"Well?" He's upped the proposal with what looks like a subdued version of his usual leer, one that she's slowly gotten used to being on the receiving end of during the past few weeks.

Clearly the wise thing to do is back away. Far, far away. Go home. Check on Dawn. Welcome herself back into reality with a healthy dose of sanity and a friendly reminder of who her current company of choice actually is in the general scheme of life. And it isn't because of a fear of the bike, or a fear of the bike-and-Spike combo.

Seriously.

She's just concerned about the amount of alcohol Spike has drank.

"C'mon," he huffs, only more impatient than before. "We're wasting time, you just standing there sorting through your virtues. They're not getting any purer, you know."

Buffy sighs. Loudly, emphatically, and in a way that lets Spike know she's doing this solely for the sake of her moral and sacred duty as a Slayer. There's a bad guy to be found. A stalking, obsessive, life-screwer-upper bad guy. That's it.

When she still hasn't budged forward, he copies her sigh, only his is full of over-exaggerated irritation. "Look, I'll go real slow. Alright? We'll creep below the bloody limit--safe as houses, or stakes, or whatever it is you need to hear," he tells her in a low, grumbly voice complete with a casual, highly indifferent roll of his shoulders. A new tactic, she figures. The demands weren't working, obviously, so opt for Plan B: assume that the Slayer is a 3-year old who needs to be cooed and coddled into obedience.

After only another small hesitation, one that's absolutely justifiable given her previously mentioned current company of choice, she walks her way over to him, steadily and perfectly and completely stumble-free, ignoring the very teethy, very pleased smile he gives her along the way.

"Fine," she mutters, mostly to reassure and reconvince herself. A verbal shot of courage.

When she gets there, though, she's faced with a dilemma she hadn't at all thought to foresee: the getting on to the motorbike part. Particularly in relation to Spike and the teeny tiny, absurdly small space he's left behind him designated for her.

Buffy looks up, not surprised to find him staring back at her. Still grinning, though it's lost some of its original amusement and is now only half as wide. "There?" she asks loudly, looking warily at the leather seat like it's a demon in need of a good and very violent slaying. Stupid evil seat.

Spike grows serious quick, mockingly so, all at once becoming the very picture of feigned ignorance. "You wanted to hop on the handlebars and give that a go?"

Jackass. She glares at him, hard, though he merely stares back with wide, unblinking eyes. Eventually she gives up the stare-off and looks back at the seat, a sense of dread forming in her chest. Hot and thick and... actually, that could just be some still looming alcohol.

"Oh, for the love of... Slayer! Get on the bloody bike!"

Buffy stumbles forward (the grass is slippery!) and quickly hoists herself up onto the bike. Spike wisely doesn't say a word as she firsts leans to the left, then arches backwards to get comfortable, all the while trying to maintain a decent amount of space between them while still managing to fit onto the available seating. Satisfied enough (though her butt is dangerously close to hanging off the seat and onto what looks suspiciously like a very hot engine of sort), she tentatively grabs a hold of the bunched up leather at his sides.

"Where to?" His voice is as rough as the engine is loud, and with the way he's now staring straight ahead, Buffy only barely catches it.

She tries to peer around him to see his face, but all she can see is the sharp angle where his jaw meets his chin. "Don't know," she yells to be heard, leaning forward. "Some place sleazy!"

He does look behind him at that, an eyebrow quirked upwards.

"What?" she defends. "We're demon-hunting."

There's a pause on Spike's end that lasts a beat or two before his incredulous, "You're serious?"

Her head feels loopy and she's pretty sure it's gotten heavier during the course of the night, but even so she feels light. Carefree. Reckless and normal and kinda on the bold, dangerous side of things, hanging out with Spike. Drinking with Spike. Blowing off the corporate working world to track down demons with Spike.

So she cracks a smile, her entire face lighting up, and says, "Deadly."

Spike stares at her for a second too long, one that feels both familiar and uncomfortable, before he finally turns to face frontward again. "Lady's choice," she hears him mutter, and, with a twist of his wrist and another rev of the engine, they peel forward.

There's this jarring, quick rush in that instant that makes her grip on him tighten, makes her fingers curl into the cold leather of his coat like a lifeline, and then all she feels is the wind. In her hair, on her face. Cold and prickling and painfully sharp, like thousands of dull needles jabbing at her, poking at her again and again.

It's wonderful and it's releasing and, for a while, she just closes her eyes and let's herself be free. 


End file.
